Icarus Awakens

Janice, who was not at all familiar with Tak but wary of male avianoids after one had played such a crucial role in the Tyrant’s plans, was not keen on letting him into the stockpile. Daniel heard their argument as he came down, which was mostly Janice saying no and Tak politely rephrasing his request.

“I wish to enter.”

“No.”

Tak thought for a moment. “I would like to speak with someone inside.”

“Unless you have the Commander’s permission, you can’t enter this building,” Janice replied with the intensity of someone who would have been scanning rooftops for snipers on Earth.

“Could you get them and I stay here?” Tak’s face projected innocent familiarity, distinguishable even on the abhuman features. “Ah. No need.”

Janice looked up at Daniel wearily as he walked down the stairs. “Sir, this is supposed to be a secure location.”

“It’s ok, it’s Tak.” Janice looked unmoved. “He was on Lograve’s team?”

She sighed and stepped away from the door, not quite relaxing. Tak, for his part, walked in as if he hadn’t had only half a leg a week ago. “Hmm. Good, you are alive.”

“The same. You looked bad when they brought you in.”

“Really?” the guard in the back of the room asked, taking interest in the new interruption to his boredom. “He looks fine to me.”

“Regeneration,” Tak said proudly to an approving nod. He turned back to Daniel. “I would like to hunt. It has been too long.”

Daniel felt a question in the statement. “I’m too busy to, wait.” Hunter was paying close attention to Tak, his head tilting in what might have been a display of curiosity. “You mean Hunter? He’s been going out nightly but you’d have to ask him if he’d be ok with a partner.”

“Was going to. You asked what I wanted first.” That was an odd response. Everyone in the original training team had gotten a dose of weird when he’d first joined them, but Tak had been absent when Daniel had been more candid about Hunter’s sentience. He tried to ask Tak what he’d meant, but he and Hunter were sharing a look. After a few seconds, they both nodded. “Good,” was all Tak said.

“What?” Daniel and the man behind him asked, the latter adding, “You can talk to that thing?”

“No. I can understand.”

The guard whom Daniel was still unable to use Identify Creature on scratched his head. “Well, how’s that different?”

Tak shrugged. “It is. Will meet him tonight. Hunt. It will be good to be out again.” He nodded in either thanks or acknowledgment of Daniel and did the same bobbing motion to Janice on the way out.

What was that Hunter? Daniel asked as he walked back upstairs to evade questions from the remaining mortals.

Hmm.

Uh, ok. The nonresponse threw Daniel, but then again Hunter didn’t owe him an answer. But he called you ‘he’. I mean, I do, but, look, this might mean he’s a Spiritualist.

So?

So Rorshawd and his people were too. You might want to be careful.

I like him, Hunter thought definitively. Not an enemy.

Well, I’ll trust you. From what I think I remember, Rorshawd was the only survivor here anyway. In a fashion. I guess it’ll be good to have someone watch your back out there. Just don’t get any ideas about getting a new best friend.

No promises.

With that out of the way, it was time to return to the heliorite. Daniel had to make this work. He had to. Just like how Hunter had to reach level two. There was more than just his locked powers riding on this, it was survival. The Tyrant was dead. Everyone still alive in the Thormundz was in the ruins of Hagain Village. If nothing was standing in their way, Murdon would have ordered them all to march out of the region and finally complete the evacuation. But there was a dragon. Another dragon, one stronger than Rorshawd, even if it hadn’t stolen mortal potential.

To have a shred of hope in defeating it, they’d need more than their powers and whatever advancements they could squeeze out in the time left before monsters would inevitably overrun the village. Magical items could prove the edge they needed.

There were some, stored carefully two stories below where he stood, but they wouldn’t be enough. Not enough to make up for the loss of Kob. To get more they’d need an Artificer, Daniel. He had a chance to make up for everything he’d done, but all roads led through his broken Focus.

“I’ll make this work. I have to,” he told himself, dragging the chair over to the table and reluctantly sitting down. He didn’t want to look at the softly glowing ore, but he had to. The only thing he’d figured out so far was that creating his Focus would require, well, focus. Beyond that, he could only hope that the inanimate rock would give up its secrets through silent interrogation alone.

Minutes passed, and nothing happened. The biggest obstacle in all of this was boredom. Daniel’s mind tended to wander when he didn’t have something clear to work on. In this instance, it almost felt like he was waiting for the heliorite to be ready. Maybe, if it was lower level material, this would be easier. Daniel had no idea. So far his creations had been practical extensions of the properties of the lightning spines. That had generated formulae, true, but even if he had his Arcane Creator feature active, the creation of a Focus was something different. Something that would be bonded to him, instead of merely made by him. Creating that personal connection to this material was something he just couldn’t wrap his head around.

He’d tried every approach he could think of. Focusing on each part of the creation process, rethinking the order of events he’d assumed needed to happen, and even trying to directly touch the heliorite for as long as he could. At the very least he’d gotten a better sense of the material. Analyze Material itself was locked, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t intuit and experiment.

The name itself implied some sort of light or maybe radiant properties. Damage types existed in this world and the rumor of Murdon’s breath attack had reached him. If necrotic damage existed, why not radiant? And the name, heliorite. Was it based intentionally on the mythological god Helios from his world, or was that just a coincidence? If knowledge had passed between Earth and the Octyrrum, that might mean other people were here. People from his world.

Part of Daniel mused on that while he continued his attempts to draw a smartphone from the rock. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? It was more likely that he wasn’t unique than that he’d been the only one drawn through. On the other hand, the Upswell had never happened before. If there had been people from his world here, the knowledge of Earth should have spread to counter the mythology of the Crest. Another possibility was that it had happened and had been ruthlessly suppressed by the churches to preserve their doctrine, which wouldn’t bode well for Daniel’s future.

Minutes turned to hours as Daniel shifted in place. Shadows passed up the walls and then almost filled the room as dusk neared. There wouldn’t be dinner tonight. Everyone who wasn’t critically ill was down to one meal. The hunger made for an added distraction. Even the importance of what Daniel was trying to do couldn’t change the reality of the village’s food stores.

Hunting was a stop gap measure at best. Eradicating the weaker monsters meant the stronger ones would seek other territory, at first. Over time, the absence of the Spoke would allow the average strength of monsters to increase. It’d already started happening and no one knew what the presence of the origin beast would do. That was mostly because almost no one knew about it.

The bottom line was that the average fauna in the wilds would become too strong to effectively hunt en masse, both for advancement and food. The monsters could out scale how quickly the mortals could level, especially this close to where the Crest met the Octyrrum. That was the true limit on how long they could stay here before they would need to challenge the dragon.

Daniel’s heart fell as the sun disappeared from his sight. He hadn’t made any progress. Maybe if he hadn’t distracted himself by training with Hunter, maybe if he worked through last night he would have cracked it. But the heliorite stood as impassively as it had this morning before him. It wouldn’t happen tonight. He was about to get into bed when Hunter, fully waking up, thought something to him with a warning tone.

She is here.

Is it Tlara this time? Daniel tensed, unsure what the Beastmaster would want. Ever since she’d taken Claire for him they hadn’t interacted at all.

No. Daniel looked out the window and felt paralysis creep across his spine and spread through his body. She saw him right before his legs buckled, which did take him out of her vision. He heard her at the door, asking to be let in. Janice wouldn’t have agreed, but she only worked until dusk. The night shift was Alost, and he knew Claire well enough to trust her.

I could stop her, Hunter offered.

No! Don’t do anything to her.

Want her to come up?

N-no. If Hunter had sounded like this Daniel would have called it mewling. Should he hide? No, Claire had seen him, she knew he was here. He should talk with her and get this over with. God, ‘get this over with’. But, I know what’s going to happen. It was getting darker outside. Hunter, Tak’s going to be waiting for you. Go ahead, I’ll be fine.

Are you sure?

She’s not going to kill me, but I think something worse is going to happen.

What?

Daniel couldn’t put it into words. I won’t be fine, but you don’t need to be here for this.

Hmm. It was a bothered grunt that coincided with the opening of the front door. Daniel peeked over the bottom of the window frame and saw Hunter exiting. His head turned to look inside, and then he padded off.

Good luck, Daniel thought to him as he heard Claire walk up the stairs slowly. Somehow, she was at the door before he’d had another coherent thought. The window, maybe he could jump out before she-

Claire opened the door hesitantly, making the hinges creak. She didn’t enter but stood in the hallway that branched from the stairs. She just stood there, looking at him as he picked himself off the floor. The anger he was expecting wasn’t there, but neither was there sadness. Just a cold gaze matched by a flat stance, with almost no intensity behind it. It was a tense moment that dragged on, neither speaking. Daniel was scared out of his wits, confronted with something he’d done everything to avoid. He couldn’t begin to guess what Claire was thinking. Eventually, she did break the silence. “What are you?”

“What?”

“That thing that killed my brother. I’ve heard the rumors. Tell me.” There was no hint of familiarity in her stiff voice. It was like they’d never met.

“I don’t know what you want to hear.”

She took a step forward, face unchanging. “I wanted to hear that you were sorry. I wanted you to tell me how he died. What happened. I wanted to hold you as I mourned him.” Her voice was close to breaking, but she kept it low and refrained from shouting her pain to the world. These words were meant for Daniel alone. “I don’t know why you stayed away. I don’t understand, because you didn’t tell me. All I know now is that I don’t know you and that this was a mistake.”

“Claire I-”

She took another step forward, and Daniel’s words broke off. “But you know what killed my brother, more than anyone else. You’re keeping a secret I deserve to know. Tell me. Then I’ll leave.”

It was not what Daniel had been expecting. In a way it was worse because he thought she was right, but he couldn’t tell her. Too many people knew already. He thought about what to say, repeating the words in his mind to make sure he wouldn’t stumble over them. “Nothing I can tell you will change what happened. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but I also can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“If you loved me at all-”

“I don’t think I did,” Daniel confessed suddenly, preparing to launch into the results of the last week of his introspection. Claire jolted in place, struck by his words. “I thought I did, but, wait!” Claire didn’t wait. Whatever she’d wanted him to say was forgotten as her eyes widened. She turned and started walking away. The inner guard, also exchanged with the setting sun, was looking anywhere but the stairs as Daniel ran after her.

She strode for the door which was already open. Alost was talking with someone outside who was standing just by the doorframe. He let Claire pass, but then a scaly, leathered arm shot across to bar Daniel’s way. Dark green feathers grew from around the elbow up. A beaked face peered out from behind the wall as Quala stood in Daniel’s way. “Get her back to my tents, Alost.”

“I have to guard-”

“Now. I will stay here until you return.” There was a tone in her voice. The authority of a surgeon in an operating theater, one that took the measure of life and death and acted accordingly. Her eyes went beyond Daniel to the interior guard who was now frozen in place. “Leave.” The building emptied and Daniel stood dumbfounded by Quala. She was acting how he’d expected Claire to, with righteous indignation. But what was she upset about? He thought of how Claire had been acting and began to sweat. “Did you know what she was doing?” Quala asked forcefully, closing the door behind her. By the way she asked, there was something specific in mind. Something he would have to had instantly known upon asking.

“No. What do you mean?” Daniel looked up with innocent trepidation. The only other time Quala had been this serious was in battle.

That seemed to satisfy her. “What did you say to her?”

“She asked me about the dragon. What happened in the mountains. Why her brother died.”

“What did you tell her?” She asked it as if she could get the answer out of him through dissection if he held his tongue.

“Nothing. It wouldn’t have done anything for her.” And I couldn’t tell her the truth, for so many reasons. He wanted to say that last part out loud desperately, but Quala didn’t know everything. She wasn’t Lograve, and more importantly, she worshipped the Octyrrum. According to her religion, he shouldn’t exist.

Quala leaned back against the wall and let some of the tension in the room fade. “As you can tell, Claire is currently under my treatment.”

“Is she injured? I didn’t notice.”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. With that, there was a subtle shift in her expression. Daniel hadn’t interacted with her long enough to appreciate the control she had over how she showed her emotions. It was an important skill for a doctor, he guessed. “I cannot speak of specifics when it comes to its nature.” She hesitated for just a moment. “But there is something more I have to ask. I saw the look on her face when she left. Is there anything that remains between you?”

Daniel looked down, knowing what he’d already assumed since the day after they’d fought Rorshawd. “No.”

“I see.” There was no judgment in Quala’s voice. She spoke as if she was dictating notes. “Will you attempt to change that?”

“No.”

She regarded him with what was probably curiosity, then nodded. “Thomas speaks highly of you.”

“He does?” Daniel was forced to ask when Quala didn’t continue. He looked once more into her green eyes and saw she was still studying him.

“Yes. From what he says he owes you his life. As his mentor and someone who cares about him, that isn’t a debt I can ignore.” She was still assessing him, choosing her words and the delivery of them carefully. Why was she being so particular about this?

“He’s my friend.” Daniel shrugged, the background chaos of everything that had been set off by Claire showing up temporarily smothered by this conversation. He respected Quala for what she was, even if he couldn’t tell her the whole truth. “To be fair, he’s healed me before.”

“Just so. I know you aren’t one to take my advice, but I’d still ask you to listen.” She paused to smile, giving him no chance to mistake the humor for something else. Some of the tension from being under her knife faded. “Speak with me on this later. I will need to see to Claire and those others injured, but that does not mean you don’t need my help.”

“I, uh, thank you but I’m not hurt. And I’ve got Regeneration…” Daniel let his sentence trail off. Quala frowned slightly.

“I think we both know that doesn’t cure all ills. To be clear, another might not have offered you this. Your actions towards Claire can hardly be described in a charitable light.” Those words cut through Daniel’s heart, the blow only slightly lessened by what she said next. “By what you have done before, you’ve argued differently. Neither can I deny that our circumstances have been the best. I can’t say if you could ever get back what you’ve lost, but I believe you haven’t acted out of malice.” Daniel didn’t have an answer for that. He’d gotten lightheaded from the emotional turbulence of the moment. At the same time, Quala’s words were kind and piercing. “What do you say?” The woman’s face was so strange. Even after over a month after arriving in this world, he still hadn’t fully gotten used to the other races. Despite this, her presence now was calming. The inspection was over, all there was now was a hand reaching out to lift his spirit.

I want to say yes, but if I do, would I be able to keep my secrets? His fears and his desire for peace warred for moments before he reached his conclusion. “I’ll do it.”

Quala waited a few moments for Daniel to add a qualifier, or reverse himself, but he left it at that. “Good. I also know you’re trying to rebind your Focus. You might find my help will aid you. For now, sleep.” Daniel wanted to tell her that he needed to finish it tonight, but he couldn’t tell her no. He still felt dizzy with a soreness in his throat that normally meant he was dehydrated. He returned to his room while Quala, true to her word, waited for Alost and the other guard to return.

…

The night was here. Somewhere out there, Hunter was roaming with Tak. He would have liked to see that, but he couldn’t detect their auras or tolerate sharing Hunter’s senses. He should just go to bed. Daniel was even lying down covered in the rough linen that passed as a blanket in a room that he had to himself.

It could be worse. He could have been mixed with the general population. There were barely audible cries of infants and small children filtering through the night air. Sleep would have been impossible should he have been bunked near them, to say nothing of what the ‘bed’ he’d rest on might have looked like. That’s where he’d be now if he hadn’t taken Lograve’s offer. He’d still probably be level one. Hell, Hunter might have never gotten his name or his personality.

It wasn’t the thoughts of what could have been that was keeping Daniel up. Not really. It was the breaking of his spirit from the rush of emotions, from him truly feeling the loss he’d been fearing. The failure, his failure, to do anything over the past few days. And the worst of it all, the homesickness that burned through him like a fever and choked like a noose. It was impossible not to think of his mother when he spoke with Quala. There were too many ways in which they were similar which made the clear differences hurt all the more, like seeing the truth behind a desert mirage.

There was also what had been on his Focus. Not the Encyclopedia, the other apps, or even the fact that it had been the channel for his Artificer powers. It was the photo. Another part of his soul chipped off with that. It wasn’t something he’d even considered until now, broken despite even the kindness of the Cleric. The phone had been one of only two things he’d had left from Earth, but the most precious part of it had been the background image of his family.

How long would it take for him to forget their faces? It was already becoming hard to remember their voices in good detail. When his father had never come back, it had taken a few months for him to need to listen to a recording to fully remember. Even that was gone. Memory was all that was left, and that too would fade. He could see the picture in his mind’s eye, but he knew it would fade.

All he could do was keep it there for as long as he could. Fix it in place. Think of it every day, when he woke to right before he slept. Do that until the day he’d neglect to one morning, for one reason or another, and suddenly find he couldn’t place the color of his sisters’ eyes. Were they blue? Brown? Green? He knew the answer now, but how long would that last?

Still, he held onto the hope that that memory would never die. Clung to it like it was a dying torch and he was lost in a dark wilderness. It was stupid, he knew. It was just a photo, and he hated how he looked in it. Hated himself for the half-frown he’d worn amidst the rest of the smiles, but it was the only thing left of them. Consciousness waned as he grew closer and closer to sleep. Even Claire was sent to the depths of his mind, perhaps to appear in the coming nightmare. The picture remained, refusing to slip from the center of his attention, keeping him from fully succumbing to sleep.

The longer this carried on, the odder it seemed. That image really wouldn’t go away, the visual equivalent of a song stuck in his head. Why? He didn’t have a power that would do that. There was something to it though that spoke to Daniel. He opened his eyes and could feel the image in his mind like it was a tangible thing, not unlike the feeling the advancement potential gave. How could a family photo be a resource?

His eyes naturally fell on the only other thing in the room that could be considered a resource and found an echo. A connection, untethered but possible. It took him a minute to realize what this was; the way to remake his Focus. Nothing about it made sense, from the sudden revelation to why a family photo of all things was the key.

For all appearances, the rough ore was the same. It did not shine brighter for what Daniel felt, its color did not change, nor did it grow warmer to burn the wood. There was just something inside of it like there was in him. Two pieces that he could unite to make a whole. He did not hesitate, did not think about the why or the how. The way he had searched for over the past few days was suddenly in front of him, and he took it.

He tore the photo from his mind and threw it into the stone, along with all of the pain and isolation being apart from them caused. Now that he knew what he needed, his earlier attempts at breaking off parts of the rock seemed comically stupid. Focuses were things one lashed to their soul. He understood this now in a way words had failed. To make one, you had to offer something worthy of that bond. Mana as well, as an afterthought, necessary only to bring the material he worked with down to his level. That too was simple, something he’d been so needlessly worried about. All he’d gotten wrong was attempting this without the most important piece.

When the two halves had joined within the heliorite, it was time to finish his Focus and draw it out. This was just as effortless and natural as what had already been done, even though he’d never done this before. He just knew what to do, it was that simple. As long as he didn’t overthink it, or question why it was happening, it would happen. And it did.

Daniel opened his eyes and saw the Focus in his hands. It was different, glowing softly like the ore it had come from. The major differences were the screen on one side, and the lattice of blue and gold across the back. The three colors were once again reminiscent of Hunter’s fur, even if the pattern was different. Another oddity, but Daniel didn’t care. He unlocked the screen and almost cried when the photo was there to greet him. Words were on the screen as well, but he just absorbed those to understand later. There was still something else he had to do.

Alost was back at the door when Daniel leaped from the window. The archer cried in alarm but didn’t chase after Daniel for the sake of the stockpile. He hadn’t seen the Focus and did not know anything other than that Claire and Quala had visited recently. Would he worry about what Daniel was going to do? Send people to the medical tents? That didn’t matter.

The pile was on the outskirts of the village, dumped far from the tents intact enough to house people and beyond where the first trees started. He only found it in the night because of how much it reeked. The bodies of the sparkbats were breaking down, too far gone even for the scavengers if they could make it this close to the village. Only Daniel could have use of them now, and it was time.

The scanning function from the heightened Encyclopedia was the same as it was with the old Focus. It was a screen similar to a camera app that highlighted targets and told him if he needed to be closer for it to work. He hesitated several times as he walked closer, smell overpowering even his febrile enthusiasm. The tracing of light over each sparkbat overlapped to make the pile itself glow on his screen, changing from gray to blue as he drew closer. To reach all the way to the back he had to be right up to it, but he did it. When every body was in range, he used his power.

Daniel read the words that crawled across his Focus, clutching it like a small sun against the darkness and death. He read and knew who he was, and what his place in this world should be. Standing, he began to walk slowly back towards the house. There was work that needed to be done.